As soon as the name left her mouth, she wanted to bite her tongue. Not everyone in the galaxy wanted to remember the Jedi. Palpatine certainly didn’t, and Panaka was loyal to his emperor.
But Panaka nodded. “I knew Kenobi as well, though that was before the Clone Wars began. Before he was a full Jedi Knight, even.”
“Really?” There might be dozens of other stories about the great Obi-Wan Kenobi, ones even her father had never known.
Before Leia could ask, however, Panaka shifted slightly in his chair to look at her straight on. “Forgive me if this is a personal question, but—I believe I remember hearing that the viceroy and his queen adopted their child. Is that true?”
“Yes, of course. It’s not a personal question at all. My adoption was celebrated publicly on Alderaan.” It was a weird question, though. What did that have to do with anything?
Panaka nodded, as if considering her words very carefully. “How many years ago was that, now?”
“I turned sixteen a few months ago. My parents took me immediately after my birth.”
“Sixteen years almost exactly.” Panaka’s eyes had regained the intensity of the moment he’d first seen Leia. “And your biological parents were—”
That was a personal question, but one Leia didn’t mind answering. The little information she had was known by many on Alderaan and elsewhere. “I’ve been told my biological father died in one of the last battles of the Clone Wars. My birth mother was badly injured and lived only long enough to deliver me.”
“Do you know their names?”
“No,” Leia said. “I’ve never asked.”
“Why not?” That question came from Dalné, who valiantly tried to soften the conversation, to move it from the specific to the general. “Aren’t you curious? Most adoptees are.”
Leia shrugged. “If either of my birth parents had survived, I’d want to know them. But they were lost before I was even one day old. My adoptive parents are the only family I’ve ever had and the only ones I’d ever want. Not every adoptee feels that way about it, but for me—my family is complete, just as it is.”
“The disintegration of the Republic was a dangerous, chaotic time,” Panaka said. His eyes had never left Leia. “So many were lost, and it was difficult to know what had become of them. One heard so many rumors, and could never be certain which to believe.”
“I’m sure.” Leia wasn’t quite sure how to take this digression, but at least he wasn’t digging into her biological parentage anymore. Was he adopted as well, or had he adopted a child himself? Either explanation made sense, but neither entirely satisfied her.
Their strange tea party ended shortly afterward. Moff Panaka walked them to the front door himself, making pleasant chitchat, though he continued to watch Leia carefully the entire time. In irritation she wondered if he thought she was going to steal a teacup.
“Thank you again for your audience and your kind attention, Moff Panaka,” Dalné said.
Panaka’s smile for her looked entirely genuine. “For many years, I served queens of Naboo. It is a privilege to serve you as well.”
“Today you’ve also served a princess of Alderaan.” Leia held out her hands, and Panaka took them. His grip felt uncomfortably tight, but her facial expression never betrayed her discomfort. “I’m reassured to know that someone in authority is looking out for the miners’ interests.” Finally, she added, but only in her head.
“Meeting you has been a…unique experience.” Panaka cocked his head, still studying her with that laser gaze. “I shall speak to Palpatine himself about this.”
“About the miners?” That was much more than Leia had dared hope for.
Panaka shook his head. “About you, Your Highness. I think he should know that the Organas adopted a daughter of such distinction.”
Whatever that meant, and now he was focused on adoption again. Leia managed to politely extract her hands from Panaka’s grasp. “If you’d mention the miners too, I’d appreciate it.”
He seemed to catch himself. “Of course. I meant what I said, Princess Leia. The miners’ supervisors won’t be getting away with such petty thievery ever again.”
With those words, the whole peculiar afternoon was made worthwhile.
After he turned to reenter the chalet, Leia and Dalné descended the steps toward the Polestar. The winds that rippled the grass around them tugged at their robes and capes, and hopefully muffled their words as Leia muttered, “What was all that about?”
“I can’t imagine. Do you think that perhaps”—Dalné hesitated—“that your father and Moff Panaka were once friends, and had some kind of falling out? He might be angry about any good fortune for an enemy, even the adoption of a child.”
That seemed like a stretch to Leia. Still…“My father’s an open critic of Palpatine’s. If Panaka’s extremely loyal to the Emperor, probably he resents—”
A wall of heat slammed into Leia and knocked her off her feet as the world turned brilliant white. Roaring sound swallowed every other noise until Leia’s ears rang too much to hear anything else. Dalné was a blur next to her, tumbling down the steps beside Leia, and the only other sight she could make out in the glare was that of plumes of flame stretching high into the pale pink sky.
Explosion, she thought. That was the only coherent word she could come up with.
Leia hit the ground hard, flat on her belly, and couldn’t inhale for what felt like far too long. Dalné crawled to her side, long locks of her black hair dangling free of her silver headdress and tears dissolving her white makeup. She said nothing, only gripped Leia’s hand.
Something exploded, Leia thought in a daze. The moff’s chalet. But that doesn’t make any sense. It was a house built of wood, not a ship or station—
Which meant the house had been destroyed by a bomb.
Sitting upright, Leia looked around to see mayhem. Smoldering droid parts lay scattered across the lawn beside burning chips of wood and debris. The chalet itself, or what remained of it, couldn’t be seen through the thick black smoke billowing into the sky. Stormtroopers were running toward the fire, no doubt in an attempt to save Quarsh Panaka, although it seemed impossible anyone could’ve been closer to the blast and lived. Ress Batten, too, ran toward them, only steps behind.
In the distance, one man was running away.
It’s the civilian worker, the one with the breathing mask! Leia tried to rise to her feet but couldn’t. She lifted her hand to at least point toward the escaping figure—
—until she realized this was an attack on an Imperial official. An attack on the Empire.
That meant this could possibly be linked to her parents’ shadowy activities on Crait.
Leia couldn’t identify the bomber as long as there was any chance this was connected to her family. Never had her loyalty to Bail and Breha Organa wounded her, but it did as she sat there, forced to let a murderer get away.
Had her parents become murderers too?